Reading Images and Texts

Relations between images and texts have benefited from an increase in scholarly attention. In medieval studies, art historians, historians, codicologists, philologists and others have applied their methods to the study of illuminated manuscripts and other works of art. These studies have shifted from a concern about the contents of the messages contained in the artefacts (e.g. in iconography) to an interest in the ways in which they were communicated to their intended audiences. The perception of texts and images, their reception by contemporaries and by later generations have become topics in their own right. According to some, medieval images may be ‘read’. According to others, the perception of images is fundamentally different from that of texts. The analysis of individual manuscripts and works of art remains the basis for any consideration of their transmission and uses. The interactions between non-verbal and verbal forms of communication, more in particular the relations between visual symbols other than writing and the recording of speech in writing, are important for the evaluation of both images and texts.